The Teesside-based waste management firm will process around 20,000 tonnes of recyclable material each year as part of the contract

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Jonathan Ward

Mark Penny, commercial manager at J & B Recycling

Waste management firm J&B Recycling has secured a three-year deal with Sunderland City Council which will create three new jobs.

The Hartlepool-based firm has already started work on the deal which will see it process an estimate 20,000 tonnes of recyclable materials each year.

Mark Penny, commercial manager at J&B Recycling, said: “We put the tender in when we knew the previous contract was drawing to a close, and we were delighted that Sunderland City Council opted to work with us.

“Over the next three years, we expect to collect 20,000 tonnes each year.

“The council will deliver the materials it collects from its blue bins to a drop-off point at a site in Washington.

“All of the paper material goes straight from there to a paper mill, but everything else is taken by us to our plant in Hartlepool where it is processed and then sent out from there to be recycled.

“It is always encouraging to secure new business. It shows the reputation we have built within J&B Recycling is a very good one, and it is an added bonus that this contract has enabled us to create three new positions.”

J&B, which employs around 200 staff, has built a new shed to store waste before it is sorted.

Earlier this year the firm said it would create 25 jobs as it outlined plans to build a new recycling plant on land next to its Teesside headquarters.

The new site was formerly a nine-metre high dumping ground operated by Easy Skips (NE) Ltd.

More than 36,000 cubic metres of waste had built up at the site — about the size of a football pitch — before J&B Recycling won the contract to clear the tip and expand its own operations.

J&B Recycling processes around 120,000 tonnes of waste each year from household, commercial, industrial and construction sources with customers including car parts manufacturer Nifco UK, Camerons Brewery and dozens of community buildings, pubs and restaurants.

Vikki Jackson-Smith established the recycling business in 2000 to diversify from the solid fuel business that her father Alan Jackson had originally established in the 1970s.